Saw light in the dark

In reference to the perfect storm of July 21-24 when some of Central Arkansas and surrounding areas were plunged into darkness as around 64,000 people lost power, our home was without energy for about 59-60 hours.

Both my wife and I slept through it. In our area there wasn’t much lightning or thunder, with little wind, nothing to cause alarm or anxiety— until 3:30 a.m. Saturday when our electricity blinked off. How much do we rely on our electricity? No air conditioning, no ceiling fans, no refrigeration, no freezer … and no stove or oven. Hot temperatures with little relief at night as the heat brutally swept through Arkansas.

Ten hours after power failure we decided to eat that box of ice cream sandwiches, the consistency now of soft butter. Then, a while later, that remaining gallon tub of vanilla ice cream, now the softness of shaving cream.

We soon visited Kroger (whose power was restored) to buy dry ice. They were out of it, but mercifully they still had plenty of bags of regular ice, so we bought some for our chest freezer.

Our neighbors across the street had their power restored early on. We could have been envious of their good fortune, but they graciously invited us to spend a few nights with them, even sharing their food and a lantern with us. Once again, the Christian example set for being good neighbors.

Many thanks to them and their hospitality and magnanimous hearts, for we later learned the motels were full and our nearest relatives lived around 25 miles away. Also many thanks to our hardworking Entergy crews and to those other states who so graciously shared their power crews with us. TOM KNIGHT

Little Rock